Metal Bands Compared by Spotify Monthly Listeners, October 2021 Rankings

Every month we take a look at Spotify’s ‘monthly listeners’ counts for several hundred metal bands and compare them side by side to gauge their relative popularity at any given moment. For more on why we’re doing this column and the methodology behind it, read this.

The numbers for October are in. More than half (186) of the 353 artists in our analysis experienced a rise in monthly listeners month over month from September, continuing an upward trend from the past three months when fewer artists showed such increases. In general, the percentage increase in listeners among bands who gained them was higher than the percentage lost among bands who saw a decrease, suggesting that Spotify is still growing among metal fans.

Some of the biggest gainers in the metal world over the past month included (sorted by chart position):

Ghost (33.50%)
Insane Clown Posse (43.00%)
Mastodon (32.01%)
Spiritbox (34.06%)
Avatar (37.05%)
Whitechapel (27.37%)
Animals as Leaders (47.75%)
Carcass (21.66%)
Fit For an Autopsy (21.05%)
Insomnium (33.11%)
Converge (28.26%)
Rivers of Nihil (21.55%)
The Agonist (43.37%)
Omnium Gatherum (27.22%)
Pig Destroyer (56.61%)
Cynic (80.23%)
Gatecreeper (82.19%)
Aephanemer (100.29%)
Author & Punisher (27.29%)
Dark the Suns (32.80%)
Beneath the Massacre (45.45%)
Imperial Triumphant (29.34%)

Artists who saw the biggest drops (sorted by chart position):

Between the Buried and Me (-24.61%)
Deafheaven (-34.64%)
Metal Church (-31.10%)
Lingua Ignota (-50.20%)
Spirit Adrift (-42.44%)
Pelican (-39.63%)

These rankings, it must be stated, are not comprehensive: the bands included on our list were chosen manually, and it is absolutely the case that many bands aren’t included (please email [email protected] if you’d like to see them added next month). For that reason, we haven’t numbered these rankings: to do so would disingenuously give the appearance this is a comprehensive list, which it is not.

You can view the most recent chart numbers, along with the entire history of these charts, in the embed below or here.